


Thus With A Kiss

by ScarfyTheShipster



Category: Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Boys Kissing, Cute, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Shakespeare, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 10:24:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5086999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarfyTheShipster/pseuds/ScarfyTheShipster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That bit about Lestat and Louis doing Shakespeare reenactments for Claudia got my mind going and I really wanted to write a little fic about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thus With A Kiss

Memories. That was the thing about being immortal; the memories seemed endless. Night upon night could be consumed by the past if Lestat wasn't careful. But oh, to indulge, and to indulge in one lover in particular-

Louis. His sweet, sad Louis. The melancholy that filled his eyes even when he smiled simultaneously charmed and annoyed Lestat, but charmed more than the latter. All those blissful years together and Louis seemed in misery, but Lestat knew it was closest to happiness as Louis could have. Perhaps Claudia was more to credit than Lestat, but he'd done what he felt he had to. He couldn't have wished it different.

If there was ever a time they felt most like a family, it was in the Shakespeare reenactments. 

"Louis dearest, why must you be so obsessed with tragedy!" exclaimed Lestst, scowling as Louis poured over the script to Othello.

"It is most like life, is it not?" Louis brushed strands of his soft black hair behind his ear and Lestat sighed at the human gesture.

"We are not in life Louis, we are dead. Celebrate!"

Louis looked at Lestat with narrowed eyes, like an irritated cat that's too lazy to move away from what's troubling him. "Betrayal, prejudice, and sorrow? I see all these present in death." 

"Be that way. I like Much Ado About Nothing much better. Or A Midsummer's Night Dream!"

Claudia appeared in the entry to the living room and gracefully curled up in a plush armchair. "Why don't you perform them all for me? We have an eternity." She smiled serenely and said, "I quite like Julius Caesar."

What a brat.

Louis returned her smile and Lestat huffed to himself. "What a dreary lot I've gathered to myself. Fine, let's start with Macbeth." Lestat stroked Louis's cheek and grinned at his surprise. He always seemed surprised by Lestat's more tender touches, as though he thought all humanity had been drained out of him. "They're often portrayed as quite the lascivious couple." 

"Are you to be the spineless kitten that should've been drowned in the river, or the fearsome mistress of the doomed castle?"

"I want to see Louis talk you into killing, father," suggested Claudia to Lestat. "It'll truly make a great comedy out of this tragedy to have the roles reversed."

"That's my girl, a true sense of humor!"

Louis was clearly offended but also wanted to please Claudia and have what had become their brand of fun. 

They read the scripts several times as Claudia practiced piano with cold perfection. Louis had something of a resting bitch face and Lestat couldn't stop smiling at him, concentration and his baseline gloom making for an odd mix. "Aren't you enjoying yourself, Louis?"

"I suppose so."

"Come now, bring some life into it, if you're so desperate to cling to your old self."

That got a smile out of him. Louis stood closer to Lestat to flip open his book to Much Ado About Nothing. "You'd make a great Dogberry."

"I'd make a great anything," Lestat said playfully, even though he appreciated Louis's compliment. 

Despite Lestat's experience onstage in Paris, he had to admit that Louis had as much talent as he did for acting. Sure, they were casual and moved and talked as people did, putting on two man plays that eventually started to look like a series of skits. 

Lestat loved all they did. He strutted about as Dogberry, instructing his night watch to be as lazy as possible as Louis was his partner Verges, imitating an elderly neighbor of theirs so uncannily Claudia couldn't hold back her angelic laughter. They sparred wits as Benedick and Beatrice, almost disappointed when they ran out of lines. Lestat was cunning and deceitful Iago to Louis's honorable Othello.

Macbeth did have a special place in Lestat's heart, for those scenes of Louis wallowing in guilt as he tried to wash dark blood from his hands, and of course, in the lascivious spirit of things, the times they would end up on the floor, one astride the other as they kissed and groaned and talked of passion and murder.

Yes, Lestat enjoyed that very much.

And of course, the most classic of them all.

Lestat stood close to Louis, the two of them facing each other but also slightly outward so Claudia could see. He was in his usual gentlemen's dress, but Louis had a rose tucked in his hair. He gently took Louis's hand and said softly, in his most charming voice. "If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss." 

Louis smiled at Lestat in a more carefree way than he ever did outside of their dramas. His cheeks were warm and flushed with fresh blood and he licked his lips. "Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion shows in this, for saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, and palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."

"Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?"

"Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer." Louis's eyes were alight as he teased, seeming to even forget about Claudia and only focusing on Lestat, just as Lestat wanted, although how keenly she watched her fathers act out murders alongside romance always amused him.

"O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do. They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair." They were oh so close now, holding hands and feeling each other's warm breathing.

"Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake." 

Louis sighed softly and leaned into Lestat's touch when he cupped Louis's cheek. "Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take." He kissed Louis gently, their warm moist lips pressing together for a too short second, Louis trying to follow him when he pulled back and whining lowly. "Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged."

"Then have my lips the sin that they have took?" He looked so eager, so in love. 

Lestat smirked. "Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!" He ran his fingertips along Louis's jaw and down his pale neck, tracing his veins and whispering lowly, "Give me my sin again."


End file.
